Bethesda: Working On PS3 Isn't "An Issue" Anymore

Developers Now Understand Sony's Tricky Machine

When it comes to first-party software, the PS3 is the undisputed visual king of consoles. God of War 3, Uncharted, Killzone all either match of eclipse offerings on rival platform the Xbox 360. However, when it comes to multiplatform software, the matter is a little different, as due to the Playstation 3's unique architecture and Microsoft's impressive development tools, third-party titles have often favored the Xbox 360. In recent years, the divide has become smaller, and that's due to developers finally understanding the tricky innards of Sony's console, according to Elder Scrolls studio, Bethesda.

"I don’t think that’s an issue anymore," lead artist Mike Carofano told Inc Gamers, in regards to troublesome PS3 development. Past Bethesda titles on PS3, especially Fallout 3, featured far more glitches and graphical hiccups than their 360 counterparts - although it must be said in some cases the Sony versions were superior - but Bethesda appear to have hurdled that particular issue. "This is our third game on PS3 so we’ve got a lot of experience about how that console works and how to make the most out of it."

According to Carofano, it's important to utilize the PS3 "in a different way than we would the Xbox 360 or PC". While it features an IMB chipset and Nvidia graphics card, both established console manufacturers, the makeup of the PS3's unique Cell architecture at first confounded developers, who struggled to translate work on the more conventional 360 and PC on to Sony's machine.

Carofano admitted if fans are looking for the visually superior version of Skyrim, they should invest in a decent rig and pick up the PC version. However, he's confident both the PS3 and 360 version can stand tall alongside their PC counterpart, with the game due for release next month. We'll be sure to inform you on what version runs best. [Inc Gamers]

Does that not sound like a lot of developers were just being lazy? I understand that financial pressures in game development can lead to bad decisions but lazy ports for a significant portion of the market is just silly. I'm hoping now that they will really start to push the PS3 hardware as they understand it more and more, we saw it with the PS2, admittedly some of those games suffered from slowdown but it was still impressive to see.

Lazy publishers, maybe - especially the bigger ones who could have allocated more resources to optimisation. However, the vast majority of developers I've talked to have mentioned the fact that the PS3 was purposefully designed to be difficult to develop for. You've gotta give Sony a fair piece of the blame there.